>>573280>she needed to come out of the pond.You just removed an important stabilizing force from that ecosystem. Big apex predators like that are important for promoting growth of the other smaller species. They limit the numbers of those smaller fish and keep them from becoming overpopulated. If there are too many small fish there isn't enough small food- crustaceans, invertebrates, larvae, bugs, small baitfish- available. The result is these fish will mostly survive but with stunted growth. Some people engineer their ponds for big bluegill and perch by intentionally keeping a couple non-breeding trophy largemouth, like yours, or a pike to keep numbers of the panfish at bay.
